


dear asshole

by stilinski



Series: Silly Shorts (Tumblr Ficlets) [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Letters, M/M, Pre-Slash, Writer Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinski/pseuds/stilinski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘<i>Dear Asshole,</i>’ the letter begins - a strong start, Derek muses idly, while his eyebrows climb toward his hairline. The letter goes on to list his many failings as a multi-bestselling author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dear asshole

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [Tumblr](http://obroech.tumblr.com/post/121517153421). The idea of it still makes me giddy.
> 
> **Additionally: I do not give my consent for my work to be shared on GoodReads, or any other site with a similar objective. Ever. No exceptions.**

Every week, Laura sends him a small selection of his fanmail she finds either particularly funny or particularly touching. This week in particular, Derek’s under fire from not only Laura - as his publisher and sister, she's able to apply double the pressure she normally would - but from his editor, too. So he’s missed a couple of deadlines - what modern fantasy writer _doesn’t_ miss deadlines? Really, he’s just fitting in - Laura should be _grateful_ that he’s finally living up to the genre’s stereotype.

This week in particular, Derek only receives one forwarded letter from Laura and he finds himself eyeing it suspiciously where it sits, ostensibly innocent, on top of his tiny excuse for a breakfast bar, in his tiny excuse for an apartment.

After a full hour of doing absolutely nothing but glance up from his unmoving, blinking cursor at the letter, Derek lets a out a sigh and shuts his laptop lid, going to open the damn envelope, finally admitting to himself that he’s not going to get anything done with a proverbial elephant trampling around his apartment.

‘ _Dear Asshole,_ ’ the letter begins - a strong start, Derek muses idly, while his eyebrows climb toward his hairline. The letter goes on to list his many failings as a multi-bestselling author, including such gems as, ‘ _I picked up your first book thinking “Hey, there are five so far--maybe the series will be finished by the time I get there!”, but no! I sat down with your first book and less than three weeks later, I’d finished book five. Two years ago! Two years of unrepentant, unbroken, unresolved sexual tension! Two years!_ ’ and, ‘ _You’re not dead - I know you’re not dead because I have a damned Google alert on your name, and you were at some fancy event a few days ago, like the smug, chiselled procrastinator you are_ ’ and, ‘ _This is all just one colossal dick move - no, it's a Colossal Dick Move, with capitals because it’s **that** much of a CDM. You spend five whole books building this amazing, beautiful story - the longing looks, building trust and testing it, impassioned arguments, pining away in darkened rooms silhouetted only by the light of the crackling hearth, all this heartfelt emotion but never, ever a confession--never once does Skyler turn and beg Ash to stay; never once, when visiting the prostitute with an alluded-to, but never outright stated, resemblance to Skyler, does Ash go running back in the middle of the night for the real thing! It’s insane._ ’

Derek finds himself smiling despite the acerbic tone of the letter, sliding onto one of his acquired barstools. ‘ _Come on, man: they’ve been gasping their possible final breaths in a rapidly flooding cellar for two and a half years -- something’s gotta give, right?_ ’.

The letter begins to close after three pages - ten point, single spaced, narrow margins - with, ‘ _I don’t even care if they never bang, you know, because I get that that might not really Skyler’s thing, but just give us - your fans, hi, remember us? - **something** , dude. I’m not sure I’d even care if the sixth book is literally just a page wherein they both yell that they love each other and it all fades to black._’ and then, ‘ _At least use the Twitter your publisher set up for you to tell us all you’re actually working on this, because we’re dying, here._ ' and finally, ' _Anyway, I’m gonna go and send this, now, because I’m kind of late for my best buddy’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Yours, with extreme sincerity, Stiles Stilinski._ ’

Derek hums, amused, and drags himself over to his laptop. He scrolls through the document he’d been working on as he moves back to sit at the breakfast bar, to the very start, to find the scene in which passionate, desperate declarations of love had indeed been made.

He highlights and deletes the whole thing.

it never sat right with him, anyway: in his gut, he’d known it hadn’t flowed, had felt sloppy and lazy, the product of pressure on too many sides to just churn something out, to please his publisher and editor rather than himself and his characters.

After a few moments of staring blankly at the screen, feeling the way he used to when he'd first started writing - a mix of trepidation, excitement, and outright terror - Derek opens an entirely new document and starts over, having Lys, a member of Ash and Skyler’s little gang of miscreants, burst in in the nick of time.

If he feels vindictively satisfied at Stiles Stilinski’s expense, nobody has to know.

*

The world has gone dark beyond Derek’s windows - and indeed, everywhere around him but his laptop screen, when his apartment door opens. He recognises the cadence of heels on hardwood so doesn’t feel the need to move from his chair, transfixed as his fingers fly over the keyboard.

Laura’s and Cora’s voices taper off into silence when they appear in Derek’s peripheral vision.

“Shh,” Laura says, rather unnecessarily: his sisters take on the air of those having stumbled across a rare and mysterious animal, slipping their shoes and jackets off in silence. The overhead light flickers to life, making Derek squint and blink at his screen, though his hands don't leave the keyboard; Cora and Laura are reduced to a rustle and rumble of background noise, readying dinner and chatting quietly between themselves.

By the time Cora slides one of her homemade pork and lentil burgers in front of him, Derek has finished off the scene he’d been working on when they came in and sits up straight, back cracking audibly. He makes a satisfied sound and gives the laptop a firm nudge towards Laura who’s trying so hard - and failing, miserably - not to look curious.

“You’ve deleted everything,” she says, voice flat.

Through a mouthful of burger - Derek loves Cora best - he shakes his head and says, “Nope.”

Cora hops up onto the stool beside Laura, her own burger in her hands, and leans over her shoulder to read.

“You've rewritten the first chapter?” she says. “Took out the corny basement scene--oh, I love Lys!”

Derek definitely loves Cora the most.

“It does flow better,” Laura concedes eventually. Laura has her redeeming factors, too, Derek supposes. “I like it - breaking the tension with Lys was a good idea. It fits better with the awkwardness in the next chapter, I think, with a moment-- _the_ moment, potentially--interrupted. I’m glad - the easy gratification wasn’t your style. Erica will go nuts, but I'll talk to her. She'll run through it with her usual red pen, but this is good. It's solid. I take it this means you’ve finally found inspiration to finish it?”

Derek nods. “I was going to have to kill Ash off to get things moving again, if I’d kept the initial draft,” he says. “Now I can keep them, for the moment. I think I’m going to kill off Lys or Bowman, though - someone the readers, and I, are emotionally invested in. Ramp up the tension and let it all fall into place.”

Laura arches an eyebrow. “This is the last one,” she says.

“I know,” Derek says, finishing his burger and clambering off of his stool for another when Cora nods at the plate next to the cooker - she always makes extra. “I have a few ideas, don’t worry.”

Laura’s eyes are narrowed sceptically. “Your first five books were released with less than a year between each one - this one has taken you almost three to get even ten chapters in, Derek: of course I’m going to worry. Last time you said you had an idea, you disappeared to Switzerland for two months.”

“He wrote fifteen thousand words today, Lo,” Cora says, bumping her shoulder against Laura’s and grinning. “Give him a little bit of a break and eat your burger. Promise, you can go back to trading scowls with him tomorrow.”

Cora’s going to inherit everything when Laura inevitably chases Derek into an early grave, Derek decides.

*

Once they’ve gone home, Derek logs onto the Twitter Laura set up for him and makes a post: ‘ _I’ve been reliably informed _(thanks, SS)_ it’s high time I updated: I promise I’m working on it. Sky and Ash haven’t been forgotten._ ’

He logs out before he gets any notifications.

He puts Stiles Stilinski's letter up on the corkboard over his breakfast bar.

*

It’s a scant eight months later that Derek’s standing in a crowded hotel ballroom for his book release, Cora on his arm. Laura’s been making the rounds, shmoozing and chatting alongside Erica. Derek's not entirely sure why either of them are trying to mooch up to anyone - they both put the guest list together: they know everyone at the party. Derek, on the other hand, knows pretty much nobody and is perfectly content with it. He sticks to his position, equal distance between the bar and the door, and debates the various merits of rapiers or longswords with Cora.

At some point, around the same time as Cora is trying to tell him she'd take his arm off at the shoulder with her metaphorical longsword quicker than he'd be able to "stick her with his glorified cocktail skewer", Laura materialises before them and relieves him of the platter of hors d’oeuvres he’d acquired from a passing waiter (they’re just not big enough for _one_ to sate him).

“Derek,” she says, in that tone that reminds him of his mother trying to introduce him to someone important - it makes him want to flatten his hair and straighten his tie - and he's not even wearing a tie. “I have someone I’d like you to meet -- he’s a big fan. I flew him in specifically.”

She straightens his suit jacket and wipes his hands on a napkin - Derek’s used to the manhandling and mollycoddling, allows it while Cora smirks at him over Laura’s shoulder. A young man drifts over, one with bright, amused eyes and the prettiest mouth Derek’s seen in a while.

“This is Stiles Stilinski,” Laura says, stepping back to allow Derek to see the young man in full - broad shoulders under a suit that fits him like a second skin, tapering in to highlight his trim waist and long legs.

It takes Derek a few seconds to catch up, which he thinks is understandable: it’s not every day he’s presented with sin on legs and expected to be articulate. “Hi,” he says, always one for the charming introductions, and then shakes his head, holding out his hand. “You’re Colossal Dick Move guy.”

Stiles flushes - only faintly, and Derek would have missed it had he not been staring. Laura and Cora melt into the background. “I think _you’re_ Colossal Dick Move guy, actually,” he says, taking Derek’s hand, his laughing eyes full of liquid warmth.

Derek’s a little bit in love, and if the handshake lasts a fair while longer than appropriate, Stiles certainly doesn’t complain.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://obroech.tumblr.com/) \-- come say hi! :)


End file.
